Supreme Court May Consider the Age-Old Second Amendment Question

Get married, have a kid, join the Army, and vote – but don’t you dare buy a gun!

How old must one be for the Second Amendment to apply? The legal answer to that question depends on where you live – but that could all change soon. The US Supreme Court is set to consider four petitions on Friday, November 14, concerning the issue of gun rights for young adults.

Out of the Fourth Circuit comes West Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. At issue in this case is whether a federal law that bans licensed sales of handguns and handgun ammunition to anyone under the age of 21 violates the Second Amendment rights of 18- to 20-year-olds who otherwise can own firearms, in general. The 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen requires a “plain text” reading of the Second Amendment, consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulations.

According to the plaintiff’s petition, the majority in the Fourth Circuit didn’t dispute either point. Indeed, as explained in the filing, “the only eighteenth-century laws cited by anyone below that directly relate to the use of firearms by this age group – the militia laws throughout the Nation that require ‘18- to 20-year-olds’ to serve in the militia and ‘to show up [for militia service] with a musket, firelock or rifle’ – in fact ‘provide [ ] strong evidence that the Second Amendment protected 18- to 20-year-olds.’”

McCoy v. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and Paris v. Second Amendment Foundation both address the same question, while National Rifle Association v. Glass challenges Florida’s law requiring a minimum purchase age of 21 for any firearm unless the buyer is in law enforcement...

The Militia Act of 1792 established a national militia by requiring all free able-bodied white males between 18 and 45 to enroll in a state militia. This act also authorized the President to call up state militias to repel invasions or suppress insurrections and required individuals to provide their own arms. It was passed in two parts, with the first on May 2nd and the second on May 8th, 1792.
Key provisions of the act
Mandatory enrollment: All eligible citizens were required to enroll in their local militia by a commanding officer.
Personal armament: Individuals were responsible for providing their own military equipment, including a musket or rifle, bayonet, flints, and cartridges.
Presidential authority: The President was given the power to call forth the militia to suppress insurrections and repel invasions, a power later made permanent.
Exclusionary clause: The act specifically excluded African Americans from militia service, a decision driven by fears of slave revolts stemming from the Haitian Revolution.
Organization: The act also provided for the organization of the militia into battalions and regiments and required the appointment of an adjutant general for each state to oversee discipline and report to the state’s commander-in-chief.
Context and significance
The acts were passed in response to significant U.S. military losses in the Northwest Indian War, particularly St. Clair’s Defeat.
They are considered a key piece of legislation for understanding the founders’ intent behind the Second Amendment’s “well-regulated militia”.
The exclusionary language regarding race institutionalized a discriminatory practice and delayed federal military participation by Black men until the Civil War.

You really need to read the highly suppressed and now out of print 1982 Senate report on the RKBA. I have a paper copy from the US Government printing office.

Here is an on line copy.
https://guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senrpt.html

“The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.”

19th century cases
16. * Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878).

“If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the (p.17)penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege.”

17. * Jennings v. State, 5 Tex. Crim. App. 298, at 300-01 (1878).

“We believe that portion of the act which provides that, in case of conviction, the defendant shall forfeit to the county the weapon or weapons so found on or about his person is not within the scope of legislative authority. * * * One of his most sacred rights is that of having arms for his own defence and that of the State. This right is one of the surest safeguards of liberty and self-preservation.”

18. * Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165, 8 Am. Rep. 8, at 17 (1871).

“The passage from Story (Joseph Story: Comments on the Constitution) shows clearly that this right was intended, as we have maintained in this opinion, and was guaranteed to and to be exercised and enjoyed by the citizen as such, and not by him as a soldier, or in defense solely of his political rights.”

19. * Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846).

“’The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State.”

And the SCOTUS case that led to the Civil War..

Are Negros citizens...Dred Scott
“It would give to persons of the negro race, who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union, the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased.... and it would give them full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to KEEP AND CARRY ARMS wherever they went.”
Paragraph 77 in the link below.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZO.html

“”unless the buyer is in law enforcement...””

I am curious, just what the hell is supposed to be sooooo special about LEOs?

I was in a MP battalion for 6 years and we usually ran about 20% active duty LEOs.

They were absolutely consistent in their lack of both skill and professionalism, so much so that others NOT in our battalion would actually ask why “they” were there.

I never really had a reasonable response so I would just say “I am not in control of duty assignments.”

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